And this is a link to a search showing the retweets. Check out the people's pages. They have links to Followers Delivery.

Morning Joe seems to follow the same pattern as The Ed Show.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: (3/4/13 9:45 EST)

I learned this morning that @msnbcPR issued a statement on Maddow on 3/2. Here it is:

Spam on #maddow hashtag is not coming from the show or any producers. Have reached out to Twitter to investigate

Earlier this morning, I tweeted this at them directly:

Can you say the same about Morning Joe or the Ed Show? Their spammers were connected to a company that offers Twitter followers.
I will let you know if and when I hear back.
FURTHER UPDATE: Someone just erased the links.

12 comments:

You don't think that your blog title suggests a link between the scraper bots and these shows that isn't anywhere in evidence? (...because the conservatives who are alleging that link actually does exist sure think you are... with the predictable "Even this liberal believes MSNBC...")

If you have any evidence that Morning Joe actually is involved--as opposed to evidence that bots have sent tweets mentioning Morning Joe, which looks to be more accurate--you ought to show it. If not, you ought to more carefully consider how folks will interpret--and potentially misinterpret--your words, particularly when dealing with those who perhaps don't share your ideological bent, or degree of honesty... I'm just sayin'...

I disagree. The evidence doesn't suggest this is a random spam thing. It's deeply mixed. The Tweeters are saying things that promote the show. They're saying things that promote another MSNBC show in the same way. The website many of them have listed on their pages is a service to promote your brand on Twitter. I have looked up FNC and CNN shows, and I can't find that they're doing it to them. With the bots I've found, they seem to only promote that one show, and then they have other nonsense text that looks copied from other Tweeters.

I'm pretty sure that ALL of the tweets are copied from other (real) users (and that in your "link to a search" link above, that the real user who actually posted the Morning Joe/Woodward tweet is "Doug - @dougdoes," who doesn't have the "followers delivery" link in his header, and was the first person on the list to've posted that tweet by at least a day--on March first, the day Woodward was actually ON Morning Joe) and that what they're promoting is far more likely the "followers delivery" site itself, since it's listed in the link in each of the headers of the other three "accounts" (bots).

Yes, the bots copy from real people. But that doesn't really change what they're doing or who they're doing it for - whoever it is.

But also the words "Followers Delivery" are not listed -I can't find them anywhere. There are links to the site, but they are in a form that doesn't actually show the name, which wouldn't really be an effective form of promotion for Followers Delivery, would it?

In other words, to find the #morningjoe hashtag, you just look at the tweet. To find the Followers Delivery site, you have to click on the person, go to his/her Twitter page, and then feel curious enough to click on the anonymous link. Morning Joe is the more high-profile and obvious promotion.

But the evidence clearly shows that putting it in the header works just dandy... YOU clicked those links, and so did I... (And besides, by using disguised links in the header, one can't actually search for them, and discover how often they're doing what they're doing.)

I just think you already are jumping to conclusions not actually in evidence, and like the bots themselves, being used by these conservatives to sell a "MSNBC is dishonestly trying to game the twitter system (or ratings?!?)" meme that has no basis in either fact or logic. (Three repeats of a hashtag a day or more after the show aired as a "plug" or "promotion"?!? REALLY?!?!)

It's not up to US to dig deep deep to validate or debunk these conservative accusations. It's up to the ones MAKING the accusations to prove them in the first place, and in my book anyway, they're offering little more than wild speculation and dark innuendo...

Not sure if I struck a nerve--you neither approved or replied to my last comment on this thread, seemingly in mid conversation (to the extent moderation ALLOWS conversation Grrr...)--but if you're still interested, try searching the other phrases these bots used (like say, this one) and consider what the additional bots--the ones that don't mention an MSNBC show--are promoting and plugging, if not the common link in their headers (which by the by, seems to redirect to a webcam dating site first (www.webcamedate.info.com), before reverting to the followers direct site. I expect the webcam site it's supposed to be advertising is what's down, and that the links go back to "followers direct" because they can't get to the webcam dating ad. AND... THAT web address brings me to (redirects to) the hostgator site you mention (Webcamdate.info)... Again, YMMV, but I think my theory makes far more sense than any connection to MSNBC...)

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